Shant Marootian is COO at Fractional.
My background is a bit unique.
TL;DR I was raised in New Jersey, earned an electrical engineering degree at Villanova University, and started a career at Deloitte Consulting, before leaving to be a COO at two subsequent crypto-native protocol and product startups.
At Deloitte, I completed 10+ strategic client projects serving and advising F500 C-Suite members (CTOs/CIOs primarily), along with their direct reports. The consulting roles which energized me most involved deep user research, redesigning customer journeys, re-architecting operating models, and redesigning product organizations.
In parallel, I've remained a curious internet-native who first learned about Bitcoin through early 2010 online communities. Then just before the 2017 ICO boom, I discovered Ethereum (plus other whitepaper rabbit holes), and decided to purchase a small amount of crypto while following along from my day job until the technology developed more.
Following DeFi summer, I left consulting to serve in two subsequent COO roles, both at crypto-native startups with the names Tessera (frmly Fractional.art) and DELV (frmly Element.Finance). In these roles, I built the connective tissue holding product, engineering, design, legal, and growth together.
Tessera was a collective ownership digital art company, where I was the first hire of its two co-founders. We completed 2 rounds of funding, a rebrand, and 3 product launches. Collectively across all products, we saw over $100M+ in onchain transaction volume. While there, I generated deep insights from disciplined user research, scaled a global team of 30, and kept the roadmap and company steady amongst fundraising, founder-led product pivots, and volatile events across crypto.
DELV was a high potential DeFi startup I joined after Tessera, where I helped the leaders realign focus of a brilliant, but scattered team by introducing data-driven business goals, redefining their product narratives, and cleaning up core operations, including finance & HR.
For their own respective reasons I'd be happy to speak to, the boards of these startups decided to dissolve and wind them down.
Now, I’m giving myself the time to deepen my knowledge on some areas (e.g., privacy/ZKPs/homomorphic encryption, stablecoins, AI, etc.) while continuing some general professional development, before figuring out where to direct my energy next. I'm especially interested in people and teams solving problems at the edge of tech, systems, and society.
I've always had a deep passion for dissecting disruptive innovation from first principles and challenging myself to be less wrong over time. Reach out and say hi if you'd like to connect!
P.S. In my spare time, I enjoy traveling, podcasts, meal prepping, working out, practicing a new skill every 6 months or so (e.g., Muay Thai, salsa dancing), and spending time with my friends & family.
